架构师提供的文本描述。红墙茶馆位于人民文化宫内，曾是故宫-紫禁城东南的皇家祭祖庙。故宫东侧的宫殿墙环绕着紫禁城，是天安门作为大门的第二圈墙。长期以来，这堵墙一直是旧中国社会阶级分化的象征，现在，它只不过是一个空间门槛，把皇宫从胡同的房子一直隔到了东方。在现代权力过渡时期，无文件记载的破坏摧毁了城墙的北半部。

Text description provided by the architects. The Red-wall Teahouse is situated inside the People’s Cultural Palace which used to be the Ancestral Temple – a royal memorial temple for ancestors southeast to the Forbidden City. The palace wall on the east side of the temple wrapped around the Forbidden City as the second ring wall in which Tian’an Men functioned as the main gate. The wall had long been a symbol of social class division in old China, now nothing but a spatial threshold separating the imperial garden from the Hutong houses to the east. During modern authority transitions, undocumented damage took down northern half of the wall.

翻修工程就在墙的破损处进行。两个破旧的仓库无人看管，一个挂在红色的长城上，另一个设在三米以外的第一个。作为一种立竿见影的设计反应，第一个仓库的屋顶被倾倒，露出胡同一侧宫殿墙的尸体。然后，在“无屋顶花园”的中间插入了一簇独立的钢框架茶室，在新旧结构之间引入了庭院。北部茶馆的外部保持了较好的形状，用新的盖子材料进行了隔热。它的内部是开放的，以满足现代节目的需要。因此，正是通过新旧、体积与虚空、传统与现代、庄严与荒诞的相互作用，才开始出现对当地环境前所未有的解读。

The renovation project took place right at the breakage of the wall. Two shabby warehouses were left on site unattended, one attached to the red imperial wall and the other one set around three meters away north to the first one. As an immediate design reaction, the roof of the first warehouse was tipped down to reveal the body of the palace wall on the Hutong side. Then a cluster of freestanding steel-frame tearooms were inserted into the middle of the ‘unroofed garden’ introducing courtyards in between the old and the new structures. The exterior of the north teahouse which had been kept in better shape was insulated with new cover material. Its interior was opened up to match modern program needs. It is, then, through such interplay of old and new, volume and void, tradition and modern, solemnity and absurdness that unprecedented readings on local environment start to emerge.

茶室由七间独特的房间组成，彼此相接，呈现出一种细胞分裂的形式。参观者必须通过现有的门道和砖墙的窗户开口进入这些房间。新的结构像城市规模上的生物细胞代谢一样重新生长。在高贵的皇家花园与简朴的胡同日常生活相遇的门槛上，建筑姿态是不稳定的，总是在调整和适应的状态上不断变化。茶道只是一种基本的活动形式。偶然的社交活动，如艺术展览、慈善拍卖、节日庆典等。将能够使当地居民更接近传统的建筑环境，同时为功能失调的古庙注入现代价值。

The teahouse consists of seven unique rooms snapping to each other exhibiting a form of cell division. Visitors must enter those rooms through existing doorways and window openings in the brick wall. New structures grow back in like bio-cells metabolizing on urban scale. At the threshold where the sublime royal garden meets the austere Hutong daily lives, architectural gesture is unstable, ever-changing always on a status of readjusting and adapting. Tea ceremony is only the basic type of activity. Occasional social events, such as art exhibition, charity auction, festival ceremonies etc. will be able to bring local residents closer to the traditional built environment while inject modern values to the dysfunctional ancient temple.

 Floor Plan

作为主要的外墙材料，刷过的不锈钢板材和玻璃板被放置在不同的角度，以反映其原始状况的红色宫殿墙。当一个人进入庭院时，你会看到砖墙的高度，从人的角度来看，砖墙在茶馆的外部反射出来，就好像有许多宫殿墙是自愿地矗立在那里的。现代材料不是要建立自治，而是要尊重文化遗产。茶室的内部用竹片、白色大理石、铜和丙烯酸管完成。每个房间都适应一个独特的特征，将建筑分解成更小的部分。在茶馆里闲逛的经历变得有效地穿过一个村庄，仿佛整个空间被放大了一样。

As major façade material, brushed stainless steel sheets and glass panel are placed in different angles to the red palace wall reflecting its raw conditions. When one enters the courtyard, one sees the over height of the solid brick palace wall reflected on the teahouse exterior on human scale as if many pieces of the palace wall standing on freewill. Modern materials do not seek to establish autonomy but to engage cultural heritage with respect. Interior of the tearooms is finished differently with bamboo sheets, white marble, copper and acrylic tubes. Each room adapts a unique character dissolving architecture into smaller pieces. The experience of rambling inside the teahouse becomes effectively walking across a village as if the overall size of the space is enlarged.